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Judge Parker, 5/12/15

Oh hey, remember when Rocky and Godiva got into a big fight, and made up, by sexing into the next morning? Well, surprise, they weren’t doing anything as hedonistic and human as sex, silly. Nope, they’ve been working hard on Rocky’s book, shaping a lurid narrative that will exploit their tabloid fame and further line their pockets! Presumably this book will rocket up the nonfiction best-seller list and stay there for as long as the Chambers Affair tops the fiction list, i.e., roughly until the heat death of the universe. Neddy is smiling because she knows that, as the representative of the Spencer-Driver clan in closest physical proximity to this profitable enterprise, she’s the one they’re going to hand the undeservedly large check to.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/12/15

Meanwhile, in Judge Parker’s sister strip, little Sarah has figured out what art is for: profit! The sad truth is that Sarah’s paintings of horsies or school buses or whatever the hell it is she ends up actually producing are probably going to sell better than 95% of the work of contemporary serious artists. So, you know, get it while you can, kid!

Mark Trail, 5/12/15

Oh, goodie! It looks like one of Mark and Wally’s problems (tree-devouring beetles) is about to be solved by another one of their problems (an out-of-control forest fire)! But — who will Mark punch? He’s gotta punch someone, right? Can he punch the O. Henrician dramatic irony that has left him without an antagonist?

Phantom, 5/12/15

Huh, the family that’s the end result of 21 generations of racially pure inbreeding and dedicated to enforcing its own version of morality, eschewing the authority of any state and creating its own mythic cult, isn’t super big on democracy! IMAGINE THAT.

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Mark Trail, 5/4/15

Oh, sure, the forest is burning to the ground, but that doesn’t mean Mark and and Wally can’t take some time for a little beaver-trapping antics, which, frankly, I wish we had gotten to see over the next six to twelve strips rather than just having them elided between panels one and two here. Still, I’m definitely intrigued by Mark’s eagerness to get those beavers home to Rusty. Like, he really wants to get some beavers home to Rusty. Dude’s got humane traps in his car at all times. Did he realize that he’d encounter some beavers on his adventures today? No, but you never know when good luck’s going to strike.

Not really sure why Mark feels compelled to mention Rusty at all here, to be honest. I’m assuming he’s either going to feed the beavers to Rusty or feed Rusty to the beavers.

Dennis the Menace, 5/4/15

Wow, Dennis, thanks a lot for making me (a) immediately think to myself “Hey, Big Bird doesn’t fly,” (b) imagine Big Bird climbing up onto the roof of the Mitchells’ car and squatting there, and (c) Googling “does big bird have a cloaca”. A-plus menacing today, I mean it.

Judge Parker, 5/4/15

“So she wants to conquer space, right? Conquer space for the French? I don’t pay much attention to current events but my understanding is that’s how it works.”

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Funky Winkerbean, 5/1/15

Guys, I did not have a particularly fun time socially for a lot of high school. At one point I got voted out of my lunch table. Once I did start making friends, as a senior, many of them were kids I met through debate who went to other schools. When I was 28, I got an email via Classmates.com (haha, remember Classmates.com?) from my graduating class’s power couple, who were somehow still together and organizing the 10-year-reunion; even though I didn’t have any interest in going, my girlfriend at the time told me to write back and ask to be put on the mailing list in order to get all the good gossip. Despite my request, I was not, in fact put on the mailing list.

So you’d think I’d be primed to identify with Les in the current Funky Winkerbean storyline, in which the most popular girl from his graduating class is skipping town and strong-arming him into taking her place and organizing a reunion for a bunch of people who used to hold him in contempt. The fact that I feel not an iota of sympathy for him is a testament to his true unlikeability as a character. Even if this today’s strip is your first exposure to him, I think you can get a sense of this. Look at that face! That face is a smirk so intensely smug that it’s crossed the line into full-on muscle spasm.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/1/15

Seems that today’s Snuffy Smith was determined to do its own version of the classic “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” gag, only to end up grappling with the fact that the only job in this impoverished subsistence-farming community that requires any degree of formal training is the lone clergyman’s post — and sadly, the current parson is a theologically unlearned grifter.

Mark Trail, 5/1/15

Oh, hello nice bureaucrat lady! Did you think you could defeat nature with some well-meaning government programs? Well you can’t. Nature is full of floods and flames and it will not obey you.

Wizard of Id, 5/1/15

Meanwhile, in the Wizard of Id, the king is going to fuck some money.